Syria ex-minister leads rebuilding plan

In this picture taken on Friday May 10, 2013, Syrian economist Abdullah al-Dardari, a chief economist at the Beirut-based U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and a former deputy prime minister in President Bashar Assad's government, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, In Beirut, Lebanon. Al-Dardari tells The Associated Press in a rare interview that his six-member expert team has been overwhelmed with requests for the reconstruction plan to support the Kerry-Lavrov initiative on the off chance it would succeed. A group of economists led by one of Syria's top reformists are feverishly drawing up a comprehensive post-war reconstruction plan, even as the country's civil war rages on with no apparent end in sight. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)